Dot uptime can use some work. You're letting both fall off before recasting more often than not. Even for 1-2 seconds, it adds up throughout the fight.
Your time between Mind Blasts is excellent, and you're making sure to use 3 orbs every time for Devouring Plague.
Likely the cause of your bad uptime however, is the priority you're putting on the FDCL Mind Spike proc's. You appear to be using them ahead of refreshing dots, often letting dots fall off in order to use the procs sooner. If you look at where the 'Surge of Darkness' uptime appears, it's almost dead on with the gaps in your dots every time. These should be used almost elusively as a Mind Flay filler. (or perhaps in the more rare situation where you need to be doing something while moving). Even with putting dots ahead of these procs, you'll find you almost never lose stacks of it (the buff lasts fairly long as is).

As you mentioned, your gear shares a use as healing spec. As such not a lot of it can be changed. I'd recommend starting to build a seperate set of gear, even if it means choosing a lower piece for use in shadow (463 instead of a 476 or whatever it may be) just so you can start reforging properly and making sure you're not wasting stats by going over hit cap and such.

Not as much dps fixing, but I did notice you used halo on maddening shout every time. Something you may want to look at, is if possible, ensuring as much of your group as possible is within range so you can use a mindsear instead. It will likely cut down on a lot of healer strain during those few seconds. I noticed the other shadow priest was dotting people with SWP :|
In our group we generally have our 4 mages break the effect solo. Not everyone, (its only a 40k effect after all) You did an average of 40k by yourself with halo, on top of what the ret pally and dk did. If done well, you can usually find yourself in a good placement to hit most of the group with a halo once the effect is broken, and do a good amount of healing with it as well.

Recommendation for improvement: Make sure you have yourself a good dot timer (even one that shows dot ticks or latency). Then go hop on the target dummy's in vale and try it out. Start with 1 target until you can be sure your dots aren't falling off for a few minutes at a time. Then make it harder, Add only SWP on a second target, then do only VT on a second target (for additional FDCL Proc's) Then do full dots on both. Once you can do it confidently here, your raid ability will improve as well.

Thank you for this. I was using halo to break people out per the raid leader's request. I will definitely work on just using mind sear next time and haloing to heal them up instead. I will make sure to work on my dot uptime too, but I'm not 100% sure about when I'm suppose to refresh my dots if you don't mind answering another question. Am I suppose to refresh them when they fall off, or if there's one tick left? I can't seem to find any information on when exactly I'm suppose to refresh dots, so I would appreciate the help here. Also, am I suppose to dot up the skulls that the shadow guy spawns or is that not worth it? If I am, should I throw up both dots or just vt/SW:P?

Also, about the FDCL procs, I have a question too. I have read that I'm suppose to prioritize a two proc FDCL for instant mind blast above everything, that's why I'm using it over refreshing dots (that and the above where I'm not sure when exactly to refresh dots). Should I not do that?

I'm working on my shadow gear set too but my priority is holy mainly, so shadow will take a backseat till I can get more gear from the coming weeks in LFR/valor.

Thanks a lot, I don't get to raid on my priest very often, so any help would be greatly appreciated so I'm prepared when I do get to raid.

Anytime between the last 2-2.5 seconds, depending on your haste, is ideal. That way the last tick just gets added to instead of overwritten.

With the FDCL procs, each one still triggers a GCD, so it actually does cost a second or so, to cast it, When you consider it costs you two of those, in order to negate what would be the normal cast time of Mind Blast, its actually a loss (considering it will usually delay when you get to cast it as well) Just use them when you can fit them in. Dots will almost always be higher priority simply based on the DPET.

And yes, dotting up the "Undying Shadows" is a dps boost. Both dot's prefereably. Without DI or FDCL talented, SWP is worth the most, If you go DI it raises the value of SWP due to proc chances, If you talent FDCL, it raises VT due to those procs. They're likely still pretty close in value and seeing as in your haste you should be able to maintain dots on 3-4 targets with a perfect rotation there's no reason you can't fit in both. Depending on your raid group you may want to change this however, if you are trying to kill them as fast as possible (eg they'll die before your dots will run out) then use mindspike spam on them instead.

Got sat and only brought in for wind lord for MD on 23-01, but the week before that he was in.

I think his gemming is a bit wrong but I think his overall game play needs help, but I need to know what to tell him.

Thanks in advance~

His gemming is fine, though he could probably undo some reforges to be just above 8085 haste (he's 500 over that right now).

A quick look at logs shows that he's not casting Mind Blast on cooldown (31 casts on H: Feng last week when he should be around ~47 at least, 47 on H: Spirit Kings when it should be ~58+, etc.). DoT uptimes seem to be a problem across the board.

Those missed Mind Blast casts mean there are a lot of missed Devouring Plague casts, totaling out to millions in lost damage over a fight. Same goes with the DoTs because of FDCL and DI procs (70% uptime on VT is at least 20% lower than it should be).

Are they using any DoT timers or anything to inform them that their CDs/nukes are up?

There's a lot wrong with your Priest friend. The first and biggest issue is that his DoT uptime is absolutely terrible. I don't know what he's using track his DoTs right now, but whatever it is, it's not working. Personally, I use ElvUI's built in DoT timers and Gnosis, but that's a bit barebones by some Priest's standards. Arlee mentioned an addon a few pages back called ShadowTimers which works pretty well for beginning Priests and getting an overall "feel" for when you should be refreshing your DoTs. FortExorcist is also great for tracking DoTs on multiple targets. Second, seems like he's using a lot of suboptimal talents for a lot encounters. For example, DI/FDCL are generally better talents for H-Zorlok, but he was spec'd ToF and had less than a 10% uptime on it. Check this thread over at H2P for a more comprehensive list of preferred talents on each encounter. Finally, he can optimize his reforging/geming a bit. Generally, it's not awful and there isn't really a specific problem if you continue stacking haste past the breakpoints, but, a lot of Priests simply get to the breakpoint and prioritize Crit afterwards. He stands to gain 1-2% Crit by changing this, so that should be a quick and easy fix.

I'll add that being a raid leader is a pretty unenviable position. Depending on the level of involvement he has in the raid group and how much he tries micromanaging his raid, it's a very stressful responsibility which can have a pretty negative effect on his overall gameplay. It's not an excuse per se, but anybody who's been a raid leader can definitely empathize and allow a bit of leeway, especially when concerning a more "minor" role such as DPS. That said, I'm sure he's aware he needs to step up his game, so one possible suggestion would be to let him step down from raid leading for a week or two so he can focus on improving his own gameplay.

Hello thanks for the replies, i'll be sure to get him to read it. I know he uses weakaura and fortexorcist to track his dot's and he uses Gnosis for the cast bar (mindflay) because I recommended those addons to him.

So mainly, Mind blast uptime and DoTs uptime are his main problems?

p.s. I think i've worded my post wrong, he's not the GM. I meant our GM is wondering why the spriest's dps is so low, haha.

I'm posting this for a friend. We are all quite confused why his dps is so low. From time to time it's even only half the dps the other raiders do. All guides have been studied, he is mainly using Howtopriest for advices, at least that's what he says. MrRobot says everything is fine except for a slightly better weapon enchant. Please help and provide us with some advices as detailed as possible. Thanks in advance.

I included the latest logs. Sorry that I didn't post proper links, but that stupid thing is telling me that I'm not allowed to.....

Mostly comes down to priority and patchy dot uptime.
He's running FDCL and DI on almost every fight he does by the looks of it. And he's putting way too much priority on FDCL procs. Letting DoT's fall off and even delaying Mind Blast casts several seconds to use them.

Needs to work on keeping DoT's up 100% of the time.
Ensuring Mind Blast is used as close to on cooldown as possible.

Also worth mentioning (Although not likely game changing) he may see a slight benifit from changing his Brilliant gems out with Reckless (as he's currently unable to reach haste plateau) Its a slight drop on single target fights, but will likely be smoother multidotting. Trinkets should be priority for replacing gear wise, Preferably with a DMC or Elegon trinket (lfr even) with where he currently stands for attainable gear.

I'd recommend he avoid using FDCL and DI together for the time being until he can master dot uptime.
Have him run Mind Bender with DI for the majority of fights, switching to ToF where there's adds that die periodically throughout the fight.
Divine Star when stacked, and Halo when spread. Cascade situationally (garajal, elegon, will)
And if he's not already using one, get a proper dot timer, preferably one that shows cast times for the appropriate spell so he can see how long before it expires that he needs to be re-casting.

I think with my ilvl I should be ranking , if not I would like to know why
Ilvl : 499
Expectations: Ranking
Amoury us.battle.net/wow/en/character/dentarg/Opspriest/simple
My logs - worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-phdy1o1acza5364w/

I dont multi dot Protectors - the procs dont really increase my dps on main boss.(tested)
I heal on tsulong in day phase. I try to get ToF up before the suns breath and heal heal heal. but I do pull more dps than that normally
Lei shi- I do literally the same every week (71-72k)
sha of fear - its my logs so my dps is overrated just a heads up.
I am the raid leader and sometimes I do have to focus on getting the fight down rather than doing my best personally but when I try to rank shuldn't I rank with my gear

Can someone help me plz. I would really appreciate some constructive criticism .[COLOR="red"]

You shouldn't worry about ranking, I hardly rank if I do not try to get a good parse and my Ilvl is 499, currently the only "good" rankings (If you do not count LFR) I have is: 16th place on Imperial Vizier Zor'lok and Blade Lord Ta'yak normal. Ranking is very dependant on your group, faster kills will help you a whole lot.

I took a look at your reforging and you seem to lack haste "cap" (8085 haste) and your hit rating is 16.53 %. 16.53 % hit is 1.53 % over hit cap, and should give you another ~400 rating of the stat you chose when you reforge down to 15 %.

Even though I do not like to reccomend sites which "help" you with gemming and reforging, clearly you need some help with it.Click pls.

Your rotation seems fine, though you should practice on keeping your dots up and casting MB on CD.

I'm looking to improve my dps in general. I know from the little knowledge I have about logs that I need to work on my dot uptime and mind blast timing, but would appreciate some more advice. I try to line up DP and dot refreshes with trinkets + lightweave + springs, but I know I need to work on using springs on cd.

Spriest PVE - Need advice

To start with the backgroung here. My guild is working through heroics (currently 8/16) and I have recenetly switched to my shadow priest from being a DK tank (due to picking up another tank and needing a ranged spot filled). Either way, I have played my shadow priest as my main and was glad to be back because I really like the class. I'm noticing that my dps seems a little low and I'd like some advice as to how I can better myself.

Here are a few things that I know could be improved:
-I need better DoT uptimes on most fights (they are getting better with each week)
-I am competing against mostly ilvl 500ish equipped raiders (I'm currently 493)
-I am still readjusting to being a ranged after tanking for a very long time as a main
-I feel like shadow priest talent/glyph swapping is taking some playing around with to find which best suit me for each fight (other than the obvious ones, ie: ToF on Garalon, etc)

I'll also say that I do have a very centralized and easy to see at a glance weak auras/ ui setup, so monitoring DoTs, procs, CD's and Halo range is not a problem (although I need to get a little better about using some things on CD)

I feel like I'm not TOO far off on some fights, but I want to just make sure I'm on the right track and if people can give me any tips that helped them improve their dps. We are hopefully getting H Will this weekend and I definitely want to make sure I'm where I need to be.

As a side note, I do feel like my average performace is partially due to me being the main raid lead. I often miss certain things if I'm putting more attention into one or the other (which should be no problem once I've readjusted to being a ranged, DoT class from a tank).

Here is a link to our logs. I'm absolutely open to any criticism and don't at all claim to be all-knowing. I think the community here is always awesome about helping one another out. So I thank any of you in advance for any help given!

Just hoping for a bit of advice really, I'll start by saying I don't have any logs, I don't know how to use em and my guild doesn't use em I don't think

Since I've started in MoP I've been plodding along with a few half arsed guilds, I've recently joined a guild progressing through heroic modes and I feel like I'm letting them down. In my other guilds I've been dominating dps, but with this one, for example I was behind 2 arcane mages on Blade Lord 10 heroic - They were around 100k dps and I was struggling at 75k.

Now I have no idea if that's good or bad really, I'm 492 ilvl, the mages and other dps for that matter are all around 501/502 ilvl.

Recently I've had a few upgrades, this is when things started to feel wrong. One theory I've had is that I've got a little too much mastery on my gear. Is this just me being paranoid? I know I dont have many mastery items really.

I make sure I'm at 24.89% haste always (although I think I'm below that now due to changing my boot enchant for a specific fight, but that's the haste cap I aim for) -This is including MQ.

I use Shadowtimers along with class timers, albeit I rarely keep an eye on CT. I have Quartz cast bar too, but Shadowtimers has always been spot on for me for when to refresh dots.

I've gemmed/reforged to slightly below the hit cap without gimping my haste then anything thereafter is made up with crit.

But yeah I'm just hoping someone can spot some huge mistake I might have missed out on, as I said before I got the heroic bits I have, things seemed fine. I even had some sideways upgrades from normal that allowed me to drop some mastery items I had so thought it might have balanced out. Am I in the right place DPS wise for my gear level or should I be pushing a little more.